Resource Added!

Type:

Curriculum, Lesson Plan

Description:

In this lesson from EconEdLink, students will be introduced to the sources of campaign war chests, learning about the recent court decisions that have allowed for the creation of "Super PACS" and 501 (c) (4) organizations. The exploration will turn to how a candidate raises resources and how spending has accelerated in recent election cycles. Finally, in an activity, the students will be assigned to groups and play the role of campaign strategists in one or the other major party. They will use an array of data, their understanding of the lesson's content, and a map of the United States to determine which states they will identify as safely in their camp, locked up by the opposition, or a battleground state worthy of resource deployment.

Subjects:

Language Arts > Writing

Education Levels:

Grade 9

Grade 10

Keywords:

elections, finance, SuperPac, campaign

Language:

English

Access Privileges:

Public - Available to anyone

License Deed:

Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial

Collections:

None

Update Standards?

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.7: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science,

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.11-12.7: Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science,

Integrate and evaluate multiple sources of information presented in diverse formats and media (e.g., visually, quantitatively, as well as in words) in order to address a question or solve a problem.

Curriki Rating

'P' - This is a trusted Partner resource

P

'P' - This is a trusted Partner resource

Not Rated Yet.

Money and Elections

Students will be introduced to the sources of campaign war chests, learning about the recent court decisions that have allowed for the creation of "Super PACS" and 501 (c) (4) organizations. The exploration will turn to how a candidate raises resources and how spending has accelerated in recent election cycles. Finally, in an activity, the students will be assigned to groups and play the role of campaign strategists in one or the other major party. They will use an array of data, their understanding of the lesson's content, and a map of the United States to determine which states they will identify as safely in their camp, locked up by the opposition, or a battleground state worthy of resource deployment.

Key Concepts

Cost/Benefit Analysis

Students Will

Be able to:

Explain how recent Supreme Court decisions have prompted a dramatic increase in the supply of new funding flowing into elections.

Discuss how recent changes in society and its relationship with technology have forced campaigns to alter how they approach the electorate.

Illustrate how the shifting demographic nature of the U.S. defines the constituencies that candidates and political parties solicit for votes.

Understand that presidential campaigns must allocate their spending based on the costs and potential benefits of campaigning in a particular state.

Introduction

Money and elections have been uneasy bedfellows throughout the history of American politics as the power of the purse has been leveraged to influence election outcomes. While The Teapot Dome scandal and Watergate, for example, have led to restrictive reforms in campaign finance rules, recent Supreme Court decisions have erased these boundaries. This has lead to a dramatic rise in the quantity of money pouring into the latest election cycles. Citizen’s United v. FEC (Federal Election Commission) and McCutcheon v. FEC have equated political donations to protected speech and eliminated limits on how much one can contribute.

In the 2012 federal election cycle, a whopping $6.3 billion was spent on campaigning—twice the amount spent in 2000. A study by the Sunlight Foundation, an advocate for government transparency, found that a group of Americans comprising less than a tenth of one percent of the U.S. population accounted for 28% of all disclosed contributions throughout the 2012 election.

Despite this explosion of resources available to political candidates, the difficult question of where to spend it still remains. The number of voters grows consistently but the methods to reach them create the most confounding issues. As voters move gradually away from traditional media outlets to more contemporary ones, where are advertising dollars best spent?

Demographic shifts require focus on Spanish language speakers and cable-cutting youth. Single issue voters embracing the Second Amendment or Marriage Equality have to be targeted. What states demand attention and what states can be ignored? Campaigns must weigh the benefits of allocating campaign funds to a state versus the costs of conducting the campaign. States with few electoral votes or states where a candidate has little chance of swaying voters to their campaign represent little benefit to a candidate and not worth the cost of precious campaign funds. On the other hand, states with many electoral votes whose voters can be swayed represent large benefits and are therefore worth the cost of campaigning.

Visit EconEdLink for the complete lesson, procedures, and all materials you will need: http://www.econedlink.org/teacher-lesson/1328/Money-Elections